ess repugnant to the Constitution is void. This
question was then by no means free from difficulty and doubt. The
framers of the Constitution took care to assure its enforcement by
judicial means against inconsistent State action, by the explicit
provision that the Constitution itself, as well as Federal statutes and
treaties, should be the "supreme law" of the land, and as such binding
upon the State judges, in spite of anything in the local laws and
constitutions. But as to the power of the courts to declare
unconstitutional a Federal statute, the instrument was silent. There is
reason to believe that this silence was not unintentional; nor would it
be difficult to cite highly respectable opinions to the effect that the
courts, viewed as a co-ordinate branch of the government, have no power
to declare invalid an Act of the Legislature, unless they possess
express constitutional authority to that effect. We have seen that
Marshall expressed in the discussions of the Virginia convention a
contrary view; but it is one thing to assert an opinion in debate and
another thing to declare it from the bench, especially in a case
involved in or related to political contests; and such a case was
Marbury _v_. Madison.

Marbury was a citizen of the District of Columbia, who had been
appointed as a justice of the peace by John Adams, just before his
vacation of the office of President. It was one of the so-called
"midnight" appointments of President Adams, which became a subject of
heated political controversy. It was alleged that Marbury's commission
had been made out, sealed, and signed, but that Mr. Madison, who
immediately afterwards became Secretary of State, withheld it from him.
Marbury therefore applied to the Supreme Court for a writ of _mandamus_
to compel its delivery. In the course of the judgment, which was
delivered by Marshall, opinions were expressed on certain questions the
decision of which was not essential to the determination of the case,
and into these it is unnecessary now to enter, although one of them has
been cited and acted upon as a precedent. But on one point the decision
of the court was requisite and fundamental, and that was the point of
jurisdiction. It was held that the court had no power to grant the writ,
because the Federal statute by which the jurisdiction was sought to be
conferred was repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. This
was the great question decided, and it was a decision